A long lost film which helped launched careers of two Hollywood stars and was filmed entirely in Plymouth.

Remembrance follows the lives of young Royal Navy recruits in Plymouth, and includes a fight scene in a famous Union Street club

Released in 1981, the movie is memorable too for being Gary Oldman’s first major film role.

Memorable scenes include rain lashing the windswept flagpoles on the Hoe, fights scenes in the Two Trees pub band a young Timothy Spall walking into the New Continental hotel.

Gary Oldman is starring as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, out in January. Watch the trailer below!

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The film also features John Altman, David John and Martin Barrass, as some of the young Devonport-based naval ratings hitting the town before setting off on a six-month NATO exercise.

The idea for the film came from a young film director, Colin Gregg, a graduate of Plymouth Art College.

Colin went to the Odeon cinema one quiet night in the late-seventies and was astounded to find, on his emergence from the not altogether packed auditorium, that Union Street was a heaving throng of activity, mostly courtesy of hundreds of young sailors only recently back from a spell at sea.

Fascinated by his experience, Colin described the evening to writer friend of his Hugh Stoddart, with whom he’d already worked on a couple of projects, including a 55-minute feature called Begging The Ring (1978), which had been three years in the making but which on release had won a Grierson award and secured a showing on the BBC.

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David John and Pete-Lee Wilson in the Two Trees. Both actors will be at the November 6 screening

Colin had first met Hugh in his capacity as the Visual Arts Officer for the fledgling South West Arts: ‘It was all very new back then, I think I was only their third appointment,’ recalls Hugh. ‘There was the Director, the Deputy Director ... then me.’

Having originally studied Law at Oxford, Hugh became disillusioned with the prospect of a career in that field.

He had nurtured thoughts of being a writer since being at school, but the screen was his first love.

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‘We got on well, hence Begging The Ring, then, when he told me his idea of making a film about what he’d witnessed in Union Street, I got involved in that.

‘I guess part of the inspiration for the script was my own experience at home: my brother was in the Merchant Navy and I’d seen that ‘being at home and going away’ rhythm of departure and arrival at first hand.

‘Once he nearly died in an accident on board ship – that was in New Zealand. I didn’t see him for a year.

‘I knew there were deaths in training in the Royal Navy, and deaths arising from accidents.

Timothy Spall waves goodbye to his wife at Plymouth Station

‘The Naval War Memorial on the Hoe was also an inspiration, but I wanted to make a film that about the Navy that wasn’t directly to do with warfare. Though it was indirectly, I think. And my focus was “the lower deck” not the officers.

‘As I researched the subject it became obvious just how crazy sailors could get, drinking, fighting among themselves ... and how bored the police were with the whole thing.

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‘We sent the script to the Navy, but they didn’t like it, so weren’t supportive.

‘But David Rose at Channel 4 – which at that time hadn’t even started broadcasting – loved it and funded it 100 per cent.

‘We’d already decided to call it Remembrance and they wanted it in time for a November screening. It was shown on Film 4 very early in their first season.

‘It probably helped that the Falklands war had happened that year, and for the first time in years British servicemen had died in that conflict.

‘I’m not sure that everyone appreciated it at the time, but we’d written it long before the Falklands.

‘We filmed the whole thing on Super 16 – new at the time, a cheaper way to end up with a 35mm print for cinemas – and Colin took it to the Taormina film festival in Sicily where it won the Grand Prize.’

Oddly enough it’s a film I remember reviewing for BBC South West’s morning radio programme.

The opening scene, with the rain lashing the windswept flagpoles on the Hoe a vivid memory even now, along with the fight scenes in the Two Trees and a young Timothy Spall walking into the New Continental!

Remembrance is memorable too for being Gary Oldman’s first major film role.